


Lattehouse Funf - The Worm Slaughterhouse Nine Coffee Shop AU

by frustratedFreeboota



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Clones, Coffee, Memory Alteration, Serial Killers, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-03-20 18:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13723731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frustratedFreeboota/pseuds/frustratedFreeboota
Summary: Former serial killer and supervillain Nice Guy once roamed America with the fellow maniacs of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Until his death that is. After the events of Worm, reincarnated and loving it, the loon finds himself in a world that offers little pleasures besides coffee. In fact, there is almost nothing to this world beyond coffee. Can be learn to let go of his violent tendencies for the simple pleasures of Java?





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Nice Guy nods off after a cappuccino.

The Nice Guy awoke to the sound of Aquilero del Brasil. Or at least he thought that was the name of it. The song for Brazil, the one that had played in the film Brazil until he and the rest of the nine had gotten quite sick of it. He wasn't sure which of his lives he'd learned the name in, or failed to learn the name. It was possible the First Guy had bothered to look it up after watching Brazil in a recently emptied theatre with Jack, but that was probably the sort of thing that had happened in a quiet moment. Only the memories of violence and of capes had remained of the First Guy, which was pretty lucky for The Guy, since that was a really good portion of them. The vast and terribly friendly entity that had attached itself to the First Guy (And by extension to The Guy and the other Guys) was kind enough to have kept The Guy's soul alive along with a fair few of his fondest memories, like listening to the beautiful and rousing sambesque beat that was... whatever the song from Brazil was called... midway through recruiting a coffee shop owner that had had the misfortune to trigger during a visit to his establishment by the 9. Recruiting in this context being a euphemism for three hours, a dozen Grande Cappuccinos, and a Creme Brulee blowtorch being used with rampant disregard for the safety manual.

 

Aquilero del Brasil started up again as the Guy peeled his face off of the newspaper that clung to it. The room was well lit, in that it was lit solely by the sunlight drifting in through the windows. The walls were decorated in a lime green wallpaper, and the room was filled with a series of empty tables, booths lining the wall with a chocolatey leather padding. A few people in suits hiding behind newspapers. He didn't much care for the decor, and something was off about the smell too. In front of him, besides the newspaper with ink smudged in the outline of his face... In front of him, drained of everything but a faint trace of frothed milk, was an empty coffee cup. Not a proper mug, but an empty ugly dinky little cup that he wouldn't even be able to fit a single finger through. And beside it was a tiny stirring spoon that had gone unused.

 

The Guy realised the other thing that he'd woken up to. The smell of coffee. Not a particular blend like the strong arabico that he'd been fond of after a hard day's work with his friends and comrades in arms, or the Sumatran black with the hint of oranges that he'd been drinking during Jack's meeting with the Teeth as he'd sealed the deal with a handshake with one arm held behind his back with a pair of fingers crossed. Not even the disgusting muddy coffee served in offices and teachers' lounges the world round that the Guy associated with the memory of a failed job application. Not his own memory, just one he'd probably picked up as part of his rather unusual reincarnation. It had taken a minute or two to finally place the indelicate aroma. It was the absolute mess of different blends that was a coffee shop.

 

A hand tapped him gently on the shoulder, gone in the second it took the Guy to press the spoon against the hand's owner's throat. It was a young girl in the post adolescent phase where a woman could just as well be 17 or 25. Dressed in a lime green apron and a matching cap that caught his eye more readily than her utterly unreadable expression. It took a long moment to notice the single raised eyebrow. Her hair was white enough to blend almost seamlessly into her nocturnal skin.

 

Guy lowered his spoon from her neck, and into a knowing wag that accompanied the dawning recognition on his face.

 

"Hang on," the Guy said, his tone slightly whimsical as he drew his lips together into a wry grin. "You're that new girl aren't you? Damsel, right?"

 

She shook her head, and he rolled his eyes.

 

"Sorry,” he said, his smile unmoving. “Damsel of Distress. I know some people get tetchy about nicknames."

 

"No," the girl with the white hair said, with a touch of perplexment about her. "I am Ashley Stillons," she said, gesturing at the name tag sewn into her apron with a touch of haughtiness. “Owner and proprietor of this establishment.”

 

The Nice Guy’s smile drooped from a beaming grin to the sobering grin of a relative that was proud of their cousin’s life choices, eyebrows moving upwards and downwards like waves as he spotted the embroidered number on the apron.

 

“Welcome to Lattehouse Funf. Do you want another cappuccino?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Nice Guy kicks back with an Ethiopian black.

"Hah," the Guy said without laughing. "I mean, that's funny," he offered, leaving a tiny seed of anticipation in the platinum blonde girl in front of him that just so happened to share a name with a white haired supervillainess.

"Not that funny," he continued. "I mean, that's not even how the German for it is spelt, let alone pronounced."

"The store came with the name." Ashley said forlornly, gazing somewhere into the distance behind the Guy's head, and then briefly the space in front of the Guy's head, and then behind his head again. Her eyes drifted, following the flight of a fly as it flew listlessly about.

"Mind if I ask... how did I get here?"

"I didn't notice you walk in..." Ashley said, looking him over. Well of course she wouldn't, the Guy thought. That was sort of the point of his power.

"You look a lot like someone I know," the Guy said, squinting. Her frame was less thin, and more lean. There were the faint traces of curves rather than an androgynous outline, and it couldn't be reconciled with the (admittedly poor) mental image that he had of Damsel of Distress. There was a touch of unfamiliarity and familiarity in her face all at once. Of course, scrutinising her in any capacity was focusing on her, such that she was completely unable to focus on him. Ashley seemed to frown a little, and the Guy watched her befuddlement fade into a more general confusion before she finally seemed to find something to talk about.

"Well we have something-"

"Pardon me," came a gruff voice, as a scarred man a foot shorter than the Damsel doppelganger squeezed past her to reach a customer.

Ashley glared at him briefly before turning back to the Guy, "We have a few of the local-"

"Excuse me," came a faint voice behind the guy. 

The girl's hair had been dyed the same lime green as the walls, her apron, and her cap. Her curtain of hair blended almost seamlessly into the clothing. Her hands were piled high with empty cups and stray spoons hanging from in between them, such that her face was completely hidden. The Guy simply slid his chair forwards a little, and for her part the girl somehow made her way through the minuscule gap he'd left for her.

She gave Ashley a curt nod as she passed, or what seemed to be one at the very least. Ashley simply scowled, her mouth clamped shut in an attempt to prevent herself from baring teeth, her head twisting slowly to watch as the lime girl made her way to the counter, and then snapping back to the Guy.

"Poetry night."

"Sorry," the Guy said, flashing a smile. "I didn't quite hear you."

"I'd just asked you if you wanted to stay for a session of the arts." Ashley re-elaborated, her neck forcing itself up and shoulders forcing themselves downward in an attempt to loom over a man quite content to simply lie back in his chair, feet resting on another chair.

"I'm not a fan of the arts." the Guy apologised, more hoping to probe her than anything else. The Damsel he'd briefly encountered would surely have threatened his life by now, if not the lives of everyone watching. If this was a ruse, it was a dedicated one.

"Are you sure?" the white haired woman spoke sweetly, a silvery eyebrow creeping upwards.

The Guy slid his lips into a cruel smirk, a harsh rebuttal sliding out from the vat where it was born, dripping with amniotic fluids.

"After all," Ashley continued. "Jack will be there."

The rebuttal was led slowly back into its pod, and put to sleep, woken only briefly for a twitch of his lips as it boiled to death. The puppyish enthusiasm that had watched it die took its place across the Guy's face.

"Jack?" He blurted, before glancing left and right and appending a half muttered, "You say?"

"Jack," Ashley proclaimed, leaning slightly forward to polish the table and affording the Guy a brief and unpleasant view of the gap between her uniform and skin.

The Guy didn't speak for some time. Meeting the wrong Damsel was wholly understandable, but seeing Jack again was unconscionable. The man was dead. Allegorically dead. Gone, more accurately to say. Very unlikely to die any time in the next five billion years or so, possibly longer. Well after the sun went out, by the common reckoning. For any practical purposes Jack was quite morally, ethically, and legally dead.

Ashley had long since walked away, cleaned his cup, and began the delicate process of brewing a customer a white chocolate mocca latte with a hint of vanilla by the time the Guy shook himself from his gape jawed stupour. He moved tactfully, fingers digging and slipping his chair about from beneath him, his hips swinging about each table and seat as he slinked towards the counter. His jaw remained open, lending the motion something of the grace of a grazing basking shark.

The Guy waited patiently for Ashley to hand over the steaming cream white coffee, bleached of all colour by the volume of cream and dissolved milkybar buttons. The customer slunk away, the Guy taking his place in line without so much as a furrowed brow from the woman he'd cut in front of.

"You've heard of him then?" Ashley said, glancing over the Guy's wide eyes and giddy grin.

"Well," he said, drawing the ls out into a veritable barcode. "I've heard of A Jack associated with A house." He cocked his head, pealing his lips back. "We go way back. Best of friends."

"So you'll be going then." Ashley declared, making what could have been a question into a statement.

"I might be," the Guy admitted.

There was a flicker of the lights. Ashley wasn't standing behind the counter anymore. More bizarrely, the counter wasn't directly in front of him anymore. He was seated, the table he'd been sat at in front of him once more. The room was alive with a gentle hum of conversation, and the sound of a tapping on a microphone. The room had darkened to a mood lighting.

"Well," The Guy said, lifting a dinky cup of a black coffee to his lips, enjoying the rich taste and the smooth way the muddied waters slid between his teeth. An Ethiopian blend, he noted.

"Well."


	3. Some kind of latte infused purgatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guy meets Jack.

COFFEE THREE  
[Draft] Saved on: Fri 20/04/2018 13:36  
This message hasn't been sent.  
WotC | Go Make Me a Sandwich

https://www.regentframing.co.uk/about

About Regent Print and Frame photo printing services in ...  
Regent Print and Frame provide a complete range of art and photo printing services. Digital photo and canvas prints are available to order online or collect from our ...  
www.regentframing.co.uk

"Hi, I'm local comedian Jack Slash. I've been in the business for nearly thirty years. Travelled the country until I met my husband, settled down, picked up a kid from the orphanage. I also killed both my parents after they locked me in a concrete bunker for most of my childhood."

 

The Guy suppressed his laughter. There was a giggle from a girl somewhere in the audience, a brief cackle from Ashley somewhere in the back. The rest of the audience made faux "Awwwww" noises. The quintessential Jack.

 

"Honestly, I kind of won any competitions at the orphanage. The "whose backstory is saddest" thing. My mommy and daddy broke up, and then daddy went looking for a hatchet, and that's why he was ruled unfit for custody. That's neat Tommy, I grew up in a dark room without ever seeing the sunlight, and they told me everyone else in the whole world was dead. Sometimes they forgot to talk to me for a week straight and I thought that I was the only person left alive."

 

Jack raised his eyebrows, and let a wave wash from one end to the other, the hairs rising and falling in a single practised motion.

 

"We all went through tragedy, and there we are bragging about how bad OUR tragedy was. Life can be a little vicious like that."

 

The Guy sniggered. It wasn't exactly new material by any stretch of the imagination, but the best material didn't get stale. Any second now, Jack was going to kill someone in the audience for the punchline. Any second now.

 

Minutes passed, while Jack started the slow crawl to the punchline of his "I'm not a social Darwinist. I'm an antisocial Darwinist." joke.

 

Long minutes of sipping at a brown cup that failed to empty or cool, trapped in a purgatory of lukewarm and half filled. Any second now, the Guy thought, taking another sip. He stopped, taking a look at the cup in his hands. He took a long, long sip. Long enough that Jack finally reached his punchline.

 

"And so I say, I'm not a social darwinist,"

 

The cup was still half full. 

 

"Let's get some audience participation. You there, guy in the back, tell us about yourself."

 

The Guy quirked his head, raised an eyebrow, his eyes still staring at the seemingly inexhaustible cup of smooth Joe. He hadn't quite heard a capital letter there.

 

"The Guy in the suit."

 

At that, the guy perked up, straightening his blood stained tie, setting his cup back down.

 

"Me?" he asked, bemused by the unfamiliar sensation of being picked out of the crowd. He supposed he really hadn't been paying much attention to "Jack" if the man had managed to notice him.

 

"Well," the Guy said, feeling a little more confident. "I died a few years back, I was cloned by a twelve year old girl, my memories are all implanted facsimiles to try and make me feel like the real thing, I have eight brothers that I'm pretty sure are all dead." 

 

"Fascinating." Jack said enthusiastically enough to imply that it really wasn't. The crowd laughed heartily and harmoniously. "And what do you do for a living?"

 

"Oh, nothing much," The Guy said bashfully. "I'm a member of an elite team of amoral murderous nomads."

 

"Sorry, what was that last part?" 

 

"The murders?" the Guy said, focusing on the crowd, unaware of the eyes on him but aware of the positions he'd memorised, the count of the coffee drinking artistes and students he'd secretly made.

 

"No, no," Jack said. "The nomads."

 

"Well, we travel from town to town, we tend to visit the smaller places, people that you say won't be missed, but actually will..."

 

"So you're hobos."

 

The Guy raised a hand to object, but found himself nodding instead, finger slipping downward. Jack twirled the microphone like a knife, and in that moment the Guy was sure that this weapon was far far deadlier.

 

"Well when you put it like that it just sounds pathetic. I mean, there's a little mystique to it.” The Guy set his coffee down, standing to his feet, refusing to leave this, this imposter Jack go about dismantling his humble way of life. “We live without money, without home, and without allies besides our fellow killers, people who could kill us all at the merest whim."

 

He felt the sense of pride falter as he remembered what had happened to his friends. Or friendses. Whatever the plural of friends was, when you had watched multiples of one’s friends die in horrifically apt or poetic manners. “Or, I mean, we did.” Guy added, aware again of the room around him once more for the second time again.

 

"That vague aroma of unwashed shirts and dried blood?" Jack asked, a finger reaching up to tease the edge of his thin and trimmed beard. It couldn’t be Jack. His hair was too washed. His face was too clean.

 

"Yeah," the Guy said, dreamily and sorrowfully all at once.

 

"So... you're unemployed, your hobby is violence and you dress like a poorer Patrick Bateman, and you haven't got a girlfriend?"

 

The Guy's mouth slipped open a little, his lip quivering. He nodded mournfully to the sound of Jack’s cruel and mocking laughter, and the whoops of the crowd about him.


End file.
